This past Christmas I started four different projects for friends and relatives, most of them are items that were requested long ago but I could never seem to find time for them.
Long story short, out of the four projects I started only one got finished in time for Christmas. And it was this wonderful set of family nesting dolls.
If you don't know what Russian nesting dolls are, they are also known as Matryoshka dolls. They are basically a set of wooden dolls in various sizes that can be opened up and stored within each other.
Believe it or not, all I was asked to do is a simple drawing of the family in my own style. The mom mentioned that she really loved my clay figurines but didn't think she could keep them in one piece with four young kids running around the house all the time. Therefore she figured a simple drawing of them would be the next best thing.
Little did she know that what she said got me thinking. It is true that my clay figurines are charming, but they are far from being family friendly since you pretty much can only look but not touch. I wondered if there could be a happy medium? Something that is still three dimensional but much more tolerable to handling?
Before I knew it, I came across a set of blank wooden Russian nesting dolls for sale at my local art supply store and the angels started singing in my head.
What happened next, you can probably all guess. I brought the blank wooden dolls home and began to outline faces of the family on them. After two full days of painting, the family of six emerged from the originally blank dolls and each carrying their own sets of favorite tools and toys.
The most wonderful thing about this project though, was probably the looks on the family's faces when they finally got to see the nesting dolls. At first they thought I was lucky enough to have found a wooden doll that happens to look just like the dad. After opening one doll after the other, they quickly realized these wooden dolls had been specially made for every single one of them and the excitement then pretty much went though the roof.
After seeing their reactions to my little experimental project, I now wonder if I should offer custom family nesting dolls in my Etsy shop. I certainly won't mind the chance to do more of these little families. Though it is probably going to be quite tough to find room next to all the cake topper orders with a baby on the way.
If you like those family nesting dolls, make a note to check out my Etsy shop toward the end of the year. If things are not too crazy, maybe I would take on a few custom nesting doll orders for the holidays. :)
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